This article by Sarah O'Grady of the Express can be alarming to new home buyers because house prices are much higher than a year ago and have elevated year on year.
HOUSE prices are steaming ahead at their strongest annual growth rate in three years.
Values this month
are 1.3 per cent higher than they were a year ago and have increased,
year on year, for the sixth month in a row.
Depending
on how far the market picks up again this autumn, 2013 could see the
highest rise in prices since the economic downturn, according to
property analyst Hometrack.
It says prices rose
0.3 per cent month-on-month in the traditionally slow month of July,
down from rises of 0.4 per cent recorded in both May and June.
But
across England and Wales, 29 per cent of postcode districts registered
hikes over the month, falling back only slightly from 31 per cent in
June which had been the biggest uplift recorded in almost six years.
Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said: “The year has got off to a strong start.”
Other indicators of the “health” of the market are still improving on the back of rising prices and sales.
Sellers
are achieving 94.4 per cent of the asking price on average, equalling
2007 levels. Homes are taking just over eight weeks to sell, marking the
shortest sales period in six years.
This shows an
increase of almost one fifth year-on-year and marking the biggest number
since there were 181,500 buyers from this sector in the first half of
2007.
Prices increased more strongly during the
first half of this year than many experts had predicted, boosted by
Government schemes such as the £80billion Funding for Lending and Help
To Buy.
Lenders report that their “risk
appetite” is returning and have slashed mortgage rates on the back of
the schemes. But some experts fear that these schemes could simply help
to create another property bubble that is bound to burst.
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